Engineering360: "Challenged by crisis, the electric grid decentralizes"

I used to work for a company called SEL, and we were experiencing a lot of demand for electronic controllers that could help separate and reconnect local grids according to generation capacity and loading, and especially line failures.

Of course, if you want a local grid to survive a nearby problem, you do need a local source of power, or at least an alternative source of power. With smaller solar and wind farms - coupled with some sort of storage solution - this becomes possible.

I have always seen decentralization as a friend to most ordinary folk and a bane only to those who think total centralized control is the only way for them to retain their power and influence. I'm glad the realities of life are pushing the power industry towards decentralization. I wish this translated better to other sectors - such as the internet? - where centralized control paradigms seem to be retaining the upper hand.